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6 Ways Twitter Stole the Oscars

Record retweets for Ellen selfie with stars

Twitter stole the Oscars last night, reaching new milestones and just dominating the conversation. It’s not a stretch to say Twitter outshined the actual show. Ellen Degeneres’ selfie with the stars was the most retweeted post of all time. Here’s what else happened on Twitter and at the Academy Awards:

1. Bradley Cooper’s arm wasn’t long enough to get Jared Leto’s full face in the picture, but the now famous selfie has more than 2.6 million retweets as of this morning. That’s more retweets than President Barack Obama’s re-election photo of him hugging the first lady.

3. Such a popular selfie wouldn’t be possible without some controversy. The photo was taken with a Samsung phone, as were a number of selfies Ellen made sure to take. Backstage, however, the host reverted to her iPhone, which was revealed by tweets that note what device messages come from. Ellen’s personal phone preference did not go unnoticed online.

4. Samsung was a major advertiser of the show and on Twitter. The electronics maker sponsored ABC tweets throughout the night via Twitter’s Amplify program, which allows media companies to share their content and sell ads against it. And Samsung was visible throughout the night with ABC using its smartphones to do the tweeting. That’s why Ellen’s backstage iPhone use drew some attention.

5. Another Twitter first last night was when best actress Cate Blanchett inserted a hashtag in her acceptance speech. She told Julia Roberts to: “Hashtag suck it.” She knows what she did.

6. That time Ellen ordered pizza at the Oscars was TV made for Twitter. The biggest winner was the little known pizza shop, Big Mama’s and Papa’s Pizzeria, that brought the pies to the stars. It got attention you just can’t buy. But of course every other pizza chain had to nose in with tweets offering their competitive services.